The place attracted wealthy travelers who wanted to experience the wilderness in comfort. For my siblings and me, that meant catering to their needs all hours of the day and night. As more and more guests began to arrive with their children in tow, it became my responsibility to entertain them while their parents were out fishing, hunting, hiking, or running the rapids. This might sound like the worst of all possible tasks, but in fact I love to laugh, and I was born with a gift for making others laugh-frequently at my own expense. I never minded playing the fool, and my popularity with the kids brought me to the attention of the adults, who rarely said good-bye without inviting me to visit them on their homeworlds, which were like imaginary places for me. From them I heard wonderful stories about Mid and Outer Rim worlds, which only reinforced my desire to escape Generis as soon as I could.
Generis was far removed from the effects of Imperial rule, but guests at the ranch kept my family well informed of galactic developments. I knew that the quickest route to earning a starship pilot"s license was through one of the Imperial Academies, but I didn"t want to spend years of compulsory service in the navy and had no interest in learning to fly TIE fighters. So I took a civilian approach, apprenticing with several shipping companies and commercial enterprises before striking out on my own as a freelance pilot. Ultimately I was hired by the Molpol Circus to pilot one of their light freighters.
By then Molpol had been in existence for about one hundred standard years. It wasn"t a big operation, but it was a profitable and popular one, especially on the remote worlds on which the arrival of the circus became an annual reason for celebration. On civilized worlds, we would lampoon everyone. HoloNet celebrities, sports figures, politicians-even Palpatine, until we received a warning from the Imperial Palace to remove him from our repertoire or face the consequences. On remote worlds, we would research local myths and legends beforehand and tailor our acts accordingly. And by remote 1 mean planets where the indigenes were still burning fossil fuels for energy, suffering through spells of unpredictable weather, and dying of diseases that had been eradicated on the Core Worlds millennia earlier. Planets on which the mere act of defying gravity was still thought of as magical. To most of the populations, the fact that we had arrived from the far side of the galaxy meant next to nothing; we could just as easily have arrived from the far side of their own planet. The important thing was that we brought with us everything one could wish for in a circus: exotic animals, live music, and a host of skilled performers, from sideshow oddities in Ryn acrobats to master illusionists on the order of the Great Xaverri.
Molpol liked to think of itself as the ant.i.thesis of Circus Horrificus, with its ferocious arqets, akk dogs, and gladiatorial contests. As an alternative to inciting the kind of chaos Horrificus once did on Nar Shaddaa, Molpol delivered wonder and pure entertainment. Although, like Horrificus, we had a rancor-an albino mutant named Snowma.s.s-and the usual a.s.sortment of carnivorous felines, herd animals, cameloids, and simians. Our beastmasters and handlers had scoured the galaxy to find the most interesting creatures-dianoga, nexu, mynock, and lava flea-but for the younglings in the audience we also had taurill, hawk-bats, energy spiders, and kyntix. Molpol"s owner at the time, an Ortolan named Dax Doogun, dreamed of adding a sarlacc to the menagerie, but could never come up with an efficient way to transport it.
To move the animals we relied on an old Haor Chall C-9979 landing ship, reconfigured to be piloted by a flesh-and-blood crew-since Molpol owned few droids-and retrofitted with a bulky, Cla.s.s Six hyperdrive. The cargo areas, racks, and ma.s.sive turntables the Neimoidians had created to deploy their tanks and battle droid transports were redesigned to carry and reposition our banthas, acklays, and gundarks-and, of course, Snowma.s.s.
The Millennium Falcon was already a part of Molpol"s fleet when I joined. It struck me as odd that such a powerful ship should be the property of a circus. Earlier owners had equipped the freighter with a military-grade hyperdrive and a dorsal turbolaser turret. But the more lime I spent at the controls of the Falcon, the more I came to appreciate what a perfect fit she was for Molpol, being as agile as our acrobats and as motley as our sideshow performers. She was also long past her glory days as a ship of any sort-battle-scarred, held together with spit and wire, in sore need of body work, and about as capricious a vessel as I"d ever piloted.
In time I grew very fond of the Falcon, but for me Molpol"s chief attraction was a young aerialist who was known by the stage name Sari Danzer. She was beautiful and graceful, and she could perform repulsorlift stunts that would amaze and astound even the most jaded members of the audience. Unlike me, the circus was in her blood, and the performances she gave had been honed over several generations In family members who guarded their secrets as closely as the Jedi once guarded theirs. Through the clever use of lasers and other aids, Sari could make herself appear to vanish, shrink, grow larger than a bantha, or streak through the sky like a meteor. Even when she wasn"t per-forming, she moved in a way that seemed almost weightless. She was Molpol"s star, and unfortunately she knew that. Her demands knew no bounds, and she insisted on bringing meticulous attention to everything she did. Never an eyelash out of place; never a piece of clothing that didn"t fit perfectly; never a misstep. If she executed one of her routines less than perfectly, she would be angry for days. And if you were a member of the crew, you definitely didn"t want to be the one responsible for spoiling the lighting or the music. Sari wouldn"t scream at you, but her cold silence could be deafening.
None of that, however, stopped me from falling in love with her.
I was a mere pilot and she had little time for me, but I managed to bridge that gap. Since everyone involved with Molpol did double duty of some sort, I decided to join the clown squad-if for no other reason than to be able to exchange a few words with Sari between acts. Fifteen other clowns and I would have just emerged from a land speeder meant for four, or I would have just worn myself out doing pratfalls, and there she"d be, waiting in the wings to go on, and I"d wish her luck or compliment her on her choice of costume. I don"t think she was physically attracted to me in the slightest, but she loved that I could make the audience laugh and leave everyone in the best possible mood to appreciate her performance.
Normally the performers traveled together from world to world in an old pa.s.senger vessel, aboard which privacy was difficult to come by, gossip was rampant, and arguments were a constant. The Falcon was reserved for transporting the owner and the ringmaster, their occasional guests, and whatever cash proceeds emerged from the performances. Still, Sari would frequently ask me how I could stand to travel in "that junk heap of a ship." At such moments I would try to sing the Falcon"s praises, but my best efforts fell on deaf ears. Finally, however, I summoned the nerve to ask if she would consider trading her some what cramped quarters aboard the pa.s.senger ship for the relative luxury of a private cabin aboard the Falcon. The schedule called for us to perform on two backrocket planets in the Anoat Sector, for both of which Dax Doogun and the ringmaster would be traveling on a ship owned by the governor of the star system. Even I couldn"t have dreamed up a more perfect situation: no hypers.p.a.ce travel-as a means of conserving fuel and lowering expenses-simply three long days and nights of reals.p.a.ce transit from the third planet in the system to the seventh. I was careful to make the invitation sound casual, but I was certain she knew what I was up to, and that I knew she knew. Her response was that her decision would depend on the outcome of a thorough inspection tour of the ship she would undertake without prior warning. She made it sound like a joke, but I grasped that she was deadly serious.
I spent days cleaning and detailing the ship inside and out. I vacuumed the holds and the ring corridor, polished the c.o.c.kpit instrument panel, and had the copilot"s chair reupholstered. I was so obsessed with making the ship as spotless as possible, I wouldn"t even entrust Molpol"s labor droids with the task. The Falcon had two cabins, but I focused on the larger of the pair-the one normally reserved for Dax Doogun-laundering the linens, installing new illuminators, scrubbing the "fresher, and recalibrating the sonic shower. I covered the tables that flanked the largest bunk with candles and I created a selection of music that could be pumped through the ship"s intercom. I stocked the galley with food and wines and asked Molpol"s cook to prepare a special meal I could reheat and serve. Performers and crew alike were entertained by the lengths to which I was willing to go to win Sari over, and most were more than happy to enroll in the conspiracy. I even managed to persuade Dax Doogun to finance the installation of A dejarik hologame table in the Falcon"s main hold. I knew that Doogun was a fan of the game, but more important I knew that Sari was, and I devoted every spare moment to brushing up on moves and the rules of play. I knew, too, that she had a strong distaste for violence, so I made certain that the accessway to the turbolaser battery was sealed.
While I toiled, I imagined the entire scenario: the meals and wines we would share, the mood music we would listen to, the compet.i.tive but flirtatious dejarik contests in which we would engage-my Kintan strider besting her Mantellian savrip . . .
The day finally arrived when Sari sprang the surprise inspection tour. We had just given the second of three performances on Delphon, where the planet"s more primitive cultures had a legend of an ancient asteroid bombardment and a starship that had left carrying genome samples of all the native flora and fauna. The primitives weren"t fooled by our attempts to make use of the legend-nor were they meant to be-but they played along just the same. As a result we performed one of our most successful shows, in which Sari was a standout, as ever.
Her tour of the Falcon began with the boarding ramp, which she went down on one knee to inspect. Once inside the ship she went directly into the c.o.c.kpit, where she ran a white-gloved hand along the instrument panel, the steering yoke, and several of the control levers and toggle switches. She sat in the copilot"s chair and swiveled through a full circle. Then she returned to the main body of the ship and made two circuits through the ring corridor before entering any of the secondary cabin s.p.a.ces and holds, peeking into dark recesses, on the lookout for dust or cobwebs, smiling when she was impressed, or at least satisfied by the efforts I"d made. Once she had returned to the main hold, I swept aside the tarpaulin under which the dejarik hologame table was concealed, and knew by her bright-eyed gaze that I had pa.s.sed the test.
In the end, all she said was, "Yes."
We struck camp on Delphon, collapsing the tents and cleaning up after ourselves. The handlers and beastmasters herded the animals into the Haor Chall lander; the crew went to their ship, the performers to theirs, and Sari and I boarded the Millennium Falcon. I had the freighter"s navicomputer plot the most straightforward course to Delphon 7, because I planned to task the autopilot with most of the flying. In those days, in the years before the Rebel Alliance began building hidden bases on worlds in the Greater Javin, the only risk posed by sublight travel was pirates. But from everything I had heard, Imperial forces had the pirates on the run. What"s more, pirates were not known to attack circuses.
While Sari showered and rid herself of makeup and glitter, I set the table in the main hold, opened the wine to let it breathe, got the meal warning, lighted the candles I"d strewn about, and started the music limning through the intercom. When she emerged from the ring corridor into the main hold she had changed into something more comfortable, and the sight of her changed me forever.
We sat across from each other at the table, and I filled our gla.s.ses with wine.
"To an eventful journey," I said, raising my gla.s.s.
Smiling, she raised hers.
The gla.s.ses were millimeters from clinking when the voice of the lander captain howled from the enunciators in the engineering station.
"Pirates!"
I leapt up, flinging wine in every direction, and rushed to don the comm headset.
"Are you certain?" I asked.
"They"re flying the Blazing Claw," the captain told me.
"Do they know we"re a circus?" I said.
"They do, and they don"t care," he shot back.
"Have you commed for help?" I asked, fully expecting the answer I received.
"They"re jamming us," the captain said.
Sari and I hurried into the c.o.c.kpit and strapped into the chairs in time to see warning bolts whizz across the bows of the big double-winged lander and the pa.s.senger ship. The fire had come from a light cruiser that was every bit as old as the Haor Chall C-9979, emblazoned with the pirate emblem of the Blazing Claw, and escorted by a dozen modified fighter craft.
"Who are they?" I asked the captain.
"Black Hole," was his answer.
I swore under my breath. Perhaps the least creative in terms of naming themselves, Black Hole was one of the most feared bands along the s.p.a.ceways that side of the Core.
"Have they issued any demands?" I asked.
He said: "Only that they want us to put down on Regosh."
The primary moon of Delphon IV, Regosh was a low-g orb lacking population centers and as heavily forested as my homeworld. There was oxygen enough for the humans and humanoids among us, but I suspected that some of the sideshow performers would be forced to wear breathers-a.s.suming the pirates weren"t planning to kill us outright.
I considered bringing the Falcon"s turbolaser to bear on the cruiser, but rejected the idea almost immediately. As dexterous as the ship was, I wasn"t talented enough to engage simultaneously in com-bat and evasive flying. Sari seemed to have read my thoughts, in any case.
"Let"s wait and see what they want," she said.
"They could be slavers," I posited.
She nodded. "Then we"ll just have to deal with that."
Changing course, I followed the lander and the other ships into Regosh"s thin atmosphere. The Black Hole vessels led us to a large clearing in the northern hemisphere, where a group of their cohorts was waiting, some armed with repeating blasters. A miscellany of some of the most cutthroat species the Outer Rim had to offer, the pirates didn"t look like the type that could be reasoned with. I doubted that even my finest pratfalls would elicit so much as a grin. When all of Molpol"s ships had set down, the leader of the pirate band, speaking butchered Basic, ordered the crew of the C-9979 to deboard. The rest of us were to remain aboard our separate ships.
Black Hole"s intentions were suddenly clear, and were at once a re lief and a worst-case scenario: They were hijacking the lander.
For three standard hours we watched as the animals were herded from the big ship and left to mill about in the clearing, as well behaved as they would have been prior to a performance. Unaccustomed to being unrestrained, many of them meandered to the edges of the clearing, where they began to nibble at Regosh"s abundant foliage. Some of the felines and gundarks skulked away and disappeared into the forest. Confused, the smaller animals-the snow lizards, copies, nerfs, and others-cl.u.s.tered together in the center of the landing zone as if awaiting instructions.
No sooner was the off-loading completed than several pirates hurried into the lander and lifted off. The rest of the Black Hole ships launched, and in the blink of an eye the pirates were gone.
Sari and I raced out of the Falcon to join Molpol"s crew and performers, who were also hurrying out of their ships. A few steps from the foot of the boarding ramp, I slopped to have a look around.
Regosh"s pale sky was darkening, and the surrounding forest was now raucous with the calls of indigenous animals. I had a bad feeling about the situation, which worsened as I saw hundreds of pairs of eyes begin to glow in the tree line.
With astounding speed something emerged from the trees and raced across the clearing, disappearing into the forest with one of the small animals clamped in its mouth. Seconds later, another creature emerged, carrying off another of the animals. Then a third, and a fourth . . .
Molpol"s armaments consisted mostly of ceremonial weapons used by our sharpshooters during their portion of the show. Some of the crew members had actual blasters, but too few to fend off attacks that were likely to continue throughout the night. I was giving thought to using the Falcon"s turbolaser to lay waste to the trees when several of the handlers hurried over to me.
"We"ve got to get these animals into the Falcon," someone shouted in my face.
I must have returned a confused look, because he repeated the statement at even higher volume.
I shook my head to clear it and tried to point out that the Falcon wasn"t large enough to accommodate even a third of the animals-and that would include using the living quarters of the ship as well as the cargo areas.
"Then you"ll just have to make three trips," said the Ryn who often served as my copilot.
"Three trips to where?" I asked in a voice that sounded too high-pitched to be my own.
"Back to Delphon," I was told.
Everyone began shouting at once, filling my ears with statements I already knew.
We had to do this for the sake of the animals. We couldn"t abandon them on Regosh to become prey. The large animals could fend for themselves, but the small ones had to be rescued. Only the Falcon was last enough to accomplish the task. Only I had the skill to plot and execute the microjumps that would be necessary. Meanwhile, the rest of them would remain on the moon and hold the predators at bay.
With that I stepped aside to make room for the handlers, who immediately set themselves to the task of herding animals into the Falcon How I wished the pirates had left us with at least enough Taanabian straw to cover the ship"s deck plates, but all the feed and grain had dis-appeared with the Haor Chall lander. When I could finally move, I raced into the ship to enable the oxygen generators and inertial dampers belowdecks and set the air scrubbers on maximum. But my nose already told me that there was simply no way the scrubbers were going to overcome the stench produced by nervous snow lizards and other cameloids. In fact, I began to doubt that the Falcon would ever smell the same again.
Then, just when it seemed that matters couldn"t get any worse, Snowma.s.s somehow got it into his flat-faced head that the Falcon was actually ingesting the small animals and decided to come to their res cue. I don"t know that there"s ever been another instance of an albino rancor attacking a YT-1300 freighter, but that was exactly what happened, and the only way I could prevent the ship from being pummeled flat and pitted by corrosive drool was to engage the repulsorlifls and dance the Falcon out of Snowma.s.s"s considerable reach while his handlers tried to calm him down. I don"t know precisely how long the dance went on, but by the end of it many of the animals were shipsick and adding to the mounting miasma by retching and emitting other noxious odors.
In all the confusion I had completely lost sight of Sari, though 1 suspected she had fled to her confined cabin in the pa.s.senger ship. So perhaps you can imagine my surprise when I exited the Falcon"s c.o.c.k-pit connector to find her seated cross-legged on the now filthy deck of the main hold, her evening dress torn beyond repair, face smudged with unidentifiable substances, and makeup in disarray. When I saw that she was crying softly I hastened to her side, babbling apologies for everything I could think of, including the pirate attack.
She gazed up at me for a long moment before wiping the tears from under her eyes and laughing. "You are a fool," she told me, "even when you"re not acting the part."
I started to stammer a reply, but she cut me off.
"Why do you think I"m with the circus-for the applause? For the few credits we earn?" She gestured broadly to the stinking snow lizards and copies crowded around her. "I love animals, Purn. And I think that after we get all of them back to Delphon, I"m going to be in love with you."
"I actually took my Ryn copilot and I four trips to transport all the animals back to Delphon," Purn continued. "But thanks to the Falcon, we made the microjump round trips in what had to be record time, and in the end we lost only twelve animals to Regosh"s predators."
"What about the big animals?" Allana asked, on the edge of her chair.
"Well, they made new lives for themselves on Regosh."
"Even Snowma.s.s?"
"Even Snowma.s.s." Purn smiled. "He seemed very happy the last time I saw him."
"Because he didn"t have to perform any more circus tricks?"
"Maybe that had something to do with it. But I think Regosh reminded him a little bit of his native Dathomir."
"My mom..." Allana started to say, then stopped herself and began again. "What happened to the small animals?"
Lament crept into Purn"s smile. He turned slightly to face Han and Leia. "Ultimately the pirate attack proved so costly that Dax Doogun was forced to sell everything-even the name Molpol itself."
"Black Hole was never apprehended?" Leia said.
"Some members were caught. The rest joined forces with the Zann Consortium."
"I take it that everything included the Falcon,"""" Han said.
"Unfortunately. If I"d had the credits, I would have purchased the ship, but wealth was long in coming to me."
A gentle rap sounded from the door and a striking Twi"lek female poked her head into the room. "Sorry to interrupt, but you"re scheduled to distribute the final prizes."
Purn beckoned her into the room. "I won"t be a moment." He looked at Han. "Where was I?"
"You would have bought the Falcon . . ."
Purn nodded. "It"s true. The Falcon was one of the first things to go, and, as manager, I personally arranged for the sale to Cix Trouvee."
"Then what?" Allana asked.
"After Molpol"s I returned to piloting, only to discover that I had lost my taste for it, and in its place I had developed a fondness for animals. I worked as a ringmaster for several other outfits and eventually found my way into judging pet shows. Which is what I"ve been doing ever since."
Han rubbed his chin. "You said the Falcon already belonged to Molpol when you signed on."
"Yes. Dax Doogun had acquired the ship several years earlier."
"Do you know where Dax got it?"
Purn thought for a moment. "I recall that the Falcon was a medical vessel of some sort."
"Really," Leia said in surprise.
"But I"m afraid that"s all I remember about it."
"Doogun would remember, wouldn"t he?" Han said.
"I"m certain he would. But I haven"t had any contact with Dax in, oh, twenty years at least."
Allana"s face fell. "Do you know where he is?"
"I"m sorry, young lady, but I don"t know where he is."
"We"ll find him," Han said confidently, and mostly for Allana"s sake.
"You never mentioned what became of Sari," Leia said.
Purn laughed out loud. "Shame on me. I married her." He gestured to the Twi"lek waiting patiently by the door. "Sari, allow me to introduce Han, Leia, and Amelia Solo, and their droid See-Threepio."
"A pleasure," Sari said.
"On the contrary," Leia said, smiling broadly.
"You could say the circus brought us together," Purn said, "but I like to credit the Millennium Falcon"